The Dallas Cowboys have yet to play a meaningful game in 2014, yet the franchise has already dealt with a year's worth of drama.

Regarding football, it began with quarterback Tony Romo and the back surgery he required at the end of last season followed by a lengthy rehab. The Cowboys were forced to cut ties with franchise sack leader DeMarcus Ware in March for salary cap reasons. The defense took added hits with the loss of middle linebacker Sean Lee for the season due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament on the first day of the offseason program while pass rusher DeMarcus Lawrence while likely miss half of his rookie campaign after breaking his right foot in training camp. And starting cornerbacks Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne have practiced little for various personal and injury-related reasons.

Regarding scandal, pictures of team owner Jerry Jones — he's been married for 50 years — and two women circulated around the internet ultimately landing on the front page of a New York tabloid with the headline 'Boys Will Be Boys.' Video of Jones and his son, Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones, partying on the team bus with NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino later made the rounds.

Regarding rules, the league handed down a four-game suspension to cornerback Orlando Scandrick, who violated the league's performance enhancing drug policy. He admitted taking a banned amphetamine as a party drug while on vacation in April and has been openly apologetic.

The draft passed without a splash after the Cowboys picked offensive lineman Zack Martin rather than Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel in the first round. The tight salary cap situation prevented the Cowboys from being a significant player in free agency.

All this as the Cowboys pack up training camp and head home to face a four-season playoff drought with coach Jason Garrett's job status still in a seemingly constant state of limbo. Dallas has gone 8-8 in each of Garrett's three full seasons.

"Look, I know for myself, I'm more motivated than I've ever been. And part of that is because you come up short, and you go through that adversity," tight end Jason Witten said. "Ultimately, you kind of hold onto that hope that you will have that breakthrough, and you believe that."

Perhaps no team in the NFL needs the normalcy of regular-season football as much as the Cowboys. Maybe that's why Garrett has put his team through what Witten described as a "tough" camp, one that challenged players more than in recent years and included two days of intense practice against the Oakland Raiders, whose fans turned the Cowboys' California facility into the Black Hole.

Cowboys players were heckled and cursed at by Silver and Black supporters. One, cornerback B.W. Webb, was on the receiving end of a helmet swung by a Raiders fan after an on-field scuffle near the stands turned into an all-out brawl earlier this week.

That fight generated more bad buzz for the Cowboys, but Dallas players and coaches believe they emerged from the two days of joint practices with a tougher and more prepared football team.

Yet somehow, through the type of travails that would drive most coaches crazy, Garrett is even-keeled and predictably optimistic.

"It's just part of your outlook on life and certainly as a football coach," said Garrett.

"There are things in life that can distract us if we get our eye off the ball, but we're pretty good at making sure we're focused on what we need to do."

Scandrick was perhaps having the best training camp of any of the Dallas defensive backs before the team learned this week he would be suspended.

"He made a mistake, and it is going to be costly to a lot of people. But again, football and sports gives you a great example of — you let a lot of people down when you mess up," Jones said. "You let a lot of people down. Everyone messes up, but it's not just you. You're responsible for a lot of people.

"A guy like him — who works as hard as he does, is as good a player as he is, has as good of character inside as he does —has a problem, I just want to see him pay the price and come on back."

Jones was speaking specifically about Scandrick, but his message could apply to the team as a whole.

Win in September, and the clouds will quickly dissipate.

"We've been through adversity, but I think it just makes it all the sweeter if you do come out the other side," Witten said.

"No one really cares about last year or the last three years. We've got to go earn (it). I think that's kind of been our approach all camp so we don't get too high or too low. We understand we're just building to the season, and then hopefully we'll be playing our best football."